


the night has a thousand eyes

by skvadern



Series: if we make it through the night everybody's gonna hear us [4]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Asexual Character, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Getting Together, Other, Relationship Negotiation, Sasha James Lives, absolute tenderness hours, creepy monster flirting, on god i will give you all emotional whiplash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21726718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skvadern/pseuds/skvadern
Summary: In her dreams, Sasha walks these quiet, alien corridors and shivers, because there is no warmth here. Only light, and history, and the knowledge that she is observed, she is followed; a screaming pressure on the back of her neck. She doesn’t bother to turn round – there won’t be anybody there.In Sasha's dreams, she talks to a monster of shifting bone and swirling hair, a monster that will tell her terrible things if she asks. In her waking world, she has Jon.In both, she is being watched.
Relationships: Sasha James/Jonathan Sims, Sasha James/Michael
Series: if we make it through the night everybody's gonna hear us [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555078
Comments: 26
Kudos: 174





	the night has a thousand eyes

**Author's Note:**

> i mean, you don't have to read the rest of the series to know what's happening, just know that sasha survived the not!them with michaels help and now it sort of hangs out in her dreams sometimes. but like, you should read the rest of the series. just sayin
> 
> title from how do you feel today by gabrielle aplin

The Archives in Sasha’s dreams are different.

The real Magnus Institute is exactly what you’d expect from an old building that’s been retrofitted into a modern institution. Florescent strip lighting in corridors designed to be lit by gas-lamps, heating that only sometimes works and leaves the weirdest cold spots, creaking wooden floorboards in one room and grey linoleum in the next. Martin’s got a truly impressive drunk rant about how awful some of the retrofits are and how everyone who signed off on them over the years should be fined, but Sasha’s always kind of liked it. The patchwork, ugly as it is in some places, gives her a weird satisfaction. She supposes it’s always seemed fitting to her, that such a strange, mixed-up organisation would reside in a strange, mixed-up building.

When she dreams, even that comfort is gone.

The familiar shifting floors become wide flagstones, worn into dips and grooves from centuries of footsteps. The walls are lined with slender candles that do not flicker, and there are no dark corners; no millimetre, _nothing_ is allowed to hide.

She doesn’t look up at the ceiling. Honestly, she doesn’t dare.

In her dreams, Sasha walks these quiet, alien corridors and shivers, because there is no warmth here. Only light, and history, and the knowledge that she is observed, she is followed; a screaming pressure on the back of her neck. She doesn’t bother to turn round – there won’t be anybody there.

Eventually she emerges into the corner of the main archive where she, Tim and Martin have their desks. If she were less observant, she’d say the room looked the same – but she’s not, so she notices how the stacks stretch back further and further, more information than any one person could ever hope to catalogue. The life’s work of a thousand Archivists.

In this moment of her dream, the Archives are populated. Tim, Martin and Jon stand in a loose circle – Tim leaning against his desk, Martin hovering next to hers. Jon is standing straight-backed, chatting to a woman she doesn’t know.

Sasha knows she’s dreaming – somehow, she always knows – so she doesn’t try to talk to the versions of her friends that her brain has invented. Instead, she leans in the doorway and studies the stranger.

A good memory for faces means Sasha normally has at least a vague memory of where she’s seen the people who crop up in her dreams. But this woman…she doesn’t know. The stranger is short and slim, light-skinned with loose curls her mum would have killed for, and she doesn’t look like anyone Sasha can remember.

Her eyes skip over to her desk, vaguely curious about how well her sleeping mind has rendered it, and what she sees in her photo frames stops her breath.

The woman, the _stranger_ is in all of them. Every face that should be Sasha is her, is _it_.

The thing that isn’t her, that _can’t be her_ , reaches over and lays a hand on Jon’s arm. He smiles at it, a sweet, distracted smile, and leans up to kiss it, soft and lingering. Sasha wants desperately to be sick.

“Dreams are wonderful things, aren’t they?”

Sasha spins, heart in her throat, to see the only slightly warped shape of Michael leaning against the wall behind her. It smiles at her, looks pleased to see her again. Next to it, a door that shouldn’t be there is set firmly into the wall. “All the possibilities, the impossibilities; I could do this to you and you would call it an attack, but your own mind wove this, and rides through it calm as a sleeping baby.”

“Have you ever actually met a baby?” Sasha asks it, and then “no, wait, don’t answer that. If you have I don’t want to know about it.” With her back turned to the horrible scene her sleeping brain conjured up, she feels the nauseous terror ebb away. _Just a dream._

Because in the real world, a monster saved her life.

Michael laughs its little, twisted laugh. “I wouldn’t hurt a baby. Where would be the fun in that? They hardly understand anything about their world as it is.”

Making an executive decision not to engage with _that_ , Sasha steps away from the door and walks back down the corridor. There won’t be anything else in there she wants to see. Michael follows her, of course – she’s now fairly sure it’s not another figment of her dreaming mind.

This must have been what it meant by _having her dreams_.

“Are you really here?” she asks, just to be sure, and it laughs again.

“Am I ever really anywhere?”

That’s probably a yes then. That is…well, she should probably be more worried about it than she is. Michael may have promised not to hurt her, but it also called itself _a creature of deceit and delusion_.

She wonders idly if it could change the content of her dreams. Based on what it told her when it first appeared, she’s inclined to say yes, it could. Which is…not good.

When she turns her head, it’s watching her. Michael’s gaze feels different, somehow, from the eyes that always follow her here. As much as she hates to admit it, it actually feels…nicer. Which, again, not good.

Still, while it’s here, it had promised her answers – had made a point of there not being a time limit to her asking for them. If this is going to go sideways on her, and it probably is any second now, she can at least get something useful out of it.

“Do you know who’s watching me?”

The response is a long, slow blink that reminds her strongly of a cat. “Not who, little assistant.”

“What, then,” she corrects, and it nods its approval.

“I do know.”

Sasha waits for more, but apparently she hasn’t caught it in a helpful mood. Trying not to sigh, she asks “What is watching me, Michael?”

This time the approving nod is paired with a wide, toothy smile that grows and grows, until it’s literally too wide for Michael’s face. She wants to look away, she does. She just _can’t_.

“Call it Beholding,” it sing-songs at her, “call it the Ceaseless Watcher, call it the Eye.” As it speaks, it _changes_ , body stretching and distorting, _twisting_ into something that should not be able to stand in front of her, swaying as if to music she can’t hear. Now it looks like the thing she’d seen in the stairwell windows – far too long, far too thin, all the bones in the hands. Its curls spiral round its head and wrap around each other, dancing a hypnotic and horrible dance. Its eyes are pits, and there is something at the bottom she doesn’t want to see.

Sasha doesn’t look away.

“Is it like you?” she asks and the cackle that spills out of Michael’s broken, impossible maw shreds along her nerves and makes her wince.

“Oh, oh Sasha, it is nothing like me, nothing at all! For one,” it actually _winks_ at her – she didn’t even notice it still had eyelids – “I’m more fun.”

There’s _so much_ she wants to ask it, but Michael’s gaze is wicked, predatory, and she knows she won’t be permitted many more questions before it does…something. Hopefully something she’ll survive. So she needs to make it count.

“How do I make it stop?”

The terrible, twisted monster leans in until it fills her vision, cupping her face delicately in its hands. One too-long thumb slides across the thin skin just under her eye, and Sasha feels the hot sting of a cut opening up in its wake. She wants so badly to flinch, but doesn’t dare.

When its mouth is so close to her cheek it could press its lips to her skin, Michael murmurs, “How do you make it stop? It’s very simple, little assistant.” Its voice drops to a whisper that sends static racing down her spine. “Tear out your eyes.”

Then its long, cruel hands curl around her shoulders and _shove_.

Suddenly the floor isn’t there anymore, just _gone_ and she’s falling down, down, end over end through a structure that looks for all the world like a _corridor,_ one of her dream-Archives corridors turned vertical. More branch off around her in the walls she’s falling past, too far away for her to snatch at one. The walls themselves seem to twist, spiralling round and round her as she tumbles until she’s half convinced that she’s spinning too.

For a second she falls past a window, and through it she sees an impossible Escher-esque maze of stone tunnels, wrapping around and through and into each other; impossibilities that she can’t bring herself to fully accept, even in a dream. The sight chills her to her core.

“Do you get all your ideas from _Alice in Wonderland_?” she yells through the fear and the stomach-twisting dizziness, and the walls shiver and hum with Michael’s delighted laughter.

Waking up feels like landing; a sudden lurching jolt like she’s been thrown back into her body. Sasha catapults upright, gasping, a headache pulsing into life as her brain scrambles to grasp the physics-obeying normality of her bedroom. As if even those few uncontrollable moments of falling were enough to recalibrate her sense of reality.

“Screw you,” she mutters under her breath, and hauls herself out of bed to get some water. She only trips on nothing once, but she’s calling that an achievement.

It’s only when she washes her face and feels a sharp sting under her eye that she realises that somehow, Michael’s cut has followed her into the waking world. Now she’s washed the blood off, it’s barely noticeable, just a thin red line hidden against her dark skin. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.

But she’d swear she can feel it, a little smear of something _other_ pressed through her skin.

~~~~~

“I dreamt about Michael last night,” she tells Jon as he passes her a bell pepper from the fridge.

The effect is immediate – Jon drops the pepper, as well as the thankfully sealed pack of chicken breast he’d been about to start dicing. He stares at her, eyes wide behind his glasses, mouth an _O_ of horror.

“It’s okay!” Sasha rushes to reassure him; she really should have come up with a better way of telling him than just blurting it out. But she hadn’t been able to think of another way to say it, and it’s done now. “It kept its word, it didn’t hurt me. I’m fine.”

Jon stares at her a bit more, incredulous. “That’s…Sasha, I’m not entirely sure it has a word to _keep_.”

That’s fair, she can’t deny that, and there is the part where Michael fucked up her dream purely to torment her. Except that she highly doubts sending her tumbling through a Carroll-esque labyrinth is the worst it could have done, and while it hadn’t been exactly _fun_ …for a being that feeds on fear, Michael had practically been gentle with her.

“It was fine,” she says again. Then she scoops up the food from the floor and starts chopping vegetables. Jon still looks shell-shocked and not a little worried, but he grabs the chicken and follows suit.

They prep the food in silence for a few minutes, until everything’s ready to go in the pan and Sasha can’t really pretend to be distracted anymore.

So when the chicken is spiced and sizzling, she turns to where Jon’s sat, on the chair they dragged in from the living room so he could rest his leg. “Jon,” she starts, falters, and tries again. “When you’re in the Archives, do you ever feel, you know…like you’re being…”

“Watched?”

They just look at each other for a few seconds, then slowly, Sasha nods. “Yeah. Watched.”

He looks down, face turned away from her so she can’t get a read on his expression. But when he says “All the time,” the quiet terror in his voice rings clearly through the little kitchen.

“Me too,” Sasha confesses, and he turns back to her, relief and hope warring with the fear. “So I asked Michael what it was, and it told me. Sort of told me.”

“Oh?” She’s got Jon’s attention now, fixed on her like a laser sight, and she can’t pretend it’s not satisfying.

“Michael called it ‘Beholding’”, she tells him, turning to move the chicken around the pan, more for something to do with her hands than anything else, “Or the ‘Ceaseless Watcher’ or the ‘Eye’. Ever heard of it?”

“It rings a bell,” Jon says slowly, and Sasha nods in agreement; she’d felt the same thing. Which implies there’s something in one of the statements, the taped ones. Today is Saturday but she could have gone in anyway – researchers being what they are, the Institute doesn’t close over the weekend. She should have gone in, had a look through the files and tapes; maybe if she had, she’d know more about this ‘beholding’ by now.

She hadn’t. Hadn’t been able to bring herself to walk back into the gaze of that _thing_ , not when she didn’t have to.

Jon sits quietly for a second, lost in thought, before bolting upright. “Beholding!” he exclaims, and darts off to the living room. Sasha blinks after him, then shrugs and turns back to the stove, adding the vegetables to the pan and putting the noodles on to cook.

When he returns, Jon’s holding a brown folder, flicking through it quickly until he pulls out a sheath of paper with a satisfied noise. He pages through it just as fast, and then flips it round to show her, jabbing his finger at one of the lines.

Sasha abandons the stove to take a closer look, and it’s…it’s a statement, the hospital statement about the burned man and Gerard Keay. She’d spent ages trying to get her hands on that CCTV.

“You keep statements in your flat?” she asks, incredulously.

Jon looks away, glowering. “Copies of statements, yes, can we _please_ focus?” As if he expects her to just ignore the fact that he’s been apparently hoarding statements like some weird, academic dragon.

Still, when she reads the line he’s pointing to, she understands his excitement. It’s the part where Lesere Saraki describes debating whether to stop Keay killing the burned man, before deciding to stand aside. When she had, Keay had told her “Yes. For you, better Beholding than the lightless flame.”

Better Beholding. Better the Eye. “The security footage!” she exclaims. “There was an eye in it. Just for a frame, but it was _definitely_ there.”

“And Gerard Keay had eyes tattooed all over him,” Jon adds, “tattoos that weren’t damaged by whatever the hell caused those burns.”

The timer beeps to drain the noodles and Sasha does in a daze, dividing them into two bowls while Jon mixes the stir fry sauce into the pan. They eat quietly; from the few glances they share, she’s sure Jon is thinking as furiously as her.

When they finish, Jon takes the empty bowls into the kitchen and Sasha gets up from the table. Her skin is buzzing, electric with tension, and she needs to pace, to _move_. Jon looks like he wants to do the same when he comes back from the kitchen, but she’s pretty sure his leg’s been worse since they went monster hunting, so he makes do with sinking onto the sofa and vibrating in place.

“So,” he starts, “Gerard Keay kills his mother – “

“Allegedly kills his mother, nobody ever proved anything and she might not actually be dead.”

“Fine, allegedly kills his mother, in 2008. Then we see him next in January 2012, almost entirely covered in burns, murdering another burn victim who may have been trying to destroy a hospital. _Then_ his mother somehow reappears, even though she was very demonstrably _dead_ , and we next see him working with her in 2012, when Dominic Swain sells him his Leitner book and he destroys it.” He smiles a little at that, a sharp quirk of a smile that worries her. “And for that, I’d almost be inclined to let the matricide go.”

Jon, Sasha reflects, has a _thing_ about Leitners. Working in Artefact Storage means she’s encountered a few herself, none of them fond memories. Like most of the Institute, she’d gladly strangle Jurgen Leitner herself, if God-knows-what hadn’t obviously gotten there first. But Jon _hates_ them, the kind of hatred that has plenty of fear behind it. Before Prentiss started making her move, the one sure thing that would get him to take a statement seriously was a mention of one. And the look on his face when he read that mention…there’s something there, she’s sure of it, some nugget of trauma, half buried and half obsessed over. Not that that’s unusual in the Magnus Institute, or any other paranormal research group. Not that Sasha herself can talk.

“There was another eye reference,” Jon says suddenly, breaking her out of her thoughts. “Dominic Swain describes a painting of an eye in Pinhole Books, done by Gerard. I can’t remember the exact description, but it was notable enough to attract his attention.”

“So eyes,” Sasha murmurs, “eyes and cameras and watching. And we think all of the real, paranormal stuff is connected to fear, so how is this about fear?”

“Fear of being watched?” Jon suggests. “Or are you telling me it feels _pleasant_ to have some invisible thing track you round the Archives all day? Because I can tell you I don’t enjoy it.”

She nods, considering. Scopophobia hasn’t ever been a real fear of hers; at least, it wasn’t until she took the archival assistant job. But it’s not uncommon, especially these days, with all the CCTV cameras and data protection scandals, all the reports of GCHQ and the NSA tracking everyone’s texts and browsing history.

She remembers, with a fast and awful jolt, the camera she’d used to kill the Not-Graham. The one that infects anyone it ‘sees’ with a vicious, endless terror of being _watched_. Her statement to Jon had described it, so when she says “The cursed camera,” he just nods grimly.

“Any other statements about being watched?”

“Maybe #8163103,” Jon replies carefully. “There was definitely something there, eye imagery and a man with no eyes who still managed to _stare_. And then there’s the connection to the Keays – they’re descendants of the von Closens, the family mentioned in the letter. And Mary Keay’s mother, also named Mary, worked as a researcher for the Institute in the fifties.”

That wasn’t a statement Jon had asked them to research, but Sasha remembers listening to his recording when he was done with it, mostly because it was one of the ones that wouldn’t record on his laptop. One of the real ones. “Right,” she says, “so, eyes, cameras, being watched, the von Closens, the Keays, and back to the Institute. If this keeps up, we’re going to need one of those conspiracy boards, with the red string.”

“Actually,” Jon says, looking worryingly thoughtful, “that might not be a bad idea.”

“Oh no, no way. We are not going to be that cliché, I’m drawing the line.” Jon sighs and relents under her mock glare, but Sasha’s pretty sure she’s going to come back to find a newly installed pinboard soon.

“The Keays then,” Jon says, “that’s our lead.” Again, she doesn’t question his assumption that they’re going to investigate further. Obviously they are. “And then,” he continues, “there’s the question of who murdered Gertrude Robinson.”

“You’ve been thinking about that,” Sasha states, doesn’t need to ask. Jon has a _look_ in his eyes that came on as soon as he said her name. He snorts, runs a hand through his hair. It’s longer than she’s ever seen it grow – not too long, but Jon normally keeps it short and neat. A little detail, but…concerning.

“Hard not to, really. It’s one thing to know your predecessor disappeared under mysterious circumstances, quite another for someone to find their _murdered corpse_ hidden in a _secret tunnel_ under your **_workplace_**.” He cuts himself off abruptly, pressing his lips together tight; like if he clamps down on his voice now, all the terror strung through it will go back to the hidden corner it just burst out of.

Before she knows what she’s doing, Sasha is moving to sit on the arm of the sofa, is reaching out and taking his hand. He stiffens, but doesn’t pull away. “You know, that’s not going to happen to you. Nobody’s going to be able to make you disappear like that.”

“Oh?” She doesn’t like the smile Jon gives her; too cynical, too bitter. “And you can guarantee that?”

“Yeah, actually, I can.” She squares her shoulders, stares him down. “Gertrude Robinson was all alone down in the Archives; nobody even knew she was in the office the day Elias found her blood all over the desk, let alone what she was working on, what she could have done or who she could have pissed off who might have wanted her dead. Nobody knew the first thing about her – no family, no friends, no anyone who would miss her.”

Jon shakes his head. “And I have such a wealth of people in my life to miss me.”

God, she almost wishes that offended her, instead of just making her desperately sad. “Don’t be a wanker. You’ve got _us_. Tim, Martin, me. If anything happened to you, I’d notice you were gone. I’d know what you were investigating, where to start looking. Who to suspect. I wouldn’t stop searching until I found you, dead or alive or _whatever_ , Jon.” When he won’t look at her, she just holds his hand and presses it tighter between her own. “You’re not going to be another mystery.”

 _That_ makes him look up, eyes wide and throat working. He blinks hard for a few seconds then clears his throat. “I – you won’t be, either. Sasha, if something happened to you…”

“This better not be the bit where you try and get me to back off ‘for my own good’,” she warns.

That actually makes him smile, weak and watery. “If I though that would work, I’d have tried already. But you won’t listen any more that I’d listen to you, and frankly I don’t know if it’d help. You’d still be working in the Archives, and Michael would still be popping up in your dreams whenever it feels like it.” He turns his hand in hers so he can hold it properly; it’s so like that moment on the balcony, that snatch of peace and connection in a world so terribly wrong. “No, I mean that if something happened to you, I wouldn’t stop searching either. Never.”

 _That_ , Sasha thinks as she tries to swallow past the lump in her throat, _sounds an awful lot like a romantic confession_. Not that she hadn’t been pretty sure Jon felt _something_ for her, but hearing it laid out in his clumsy, stuttering way is something else entirely.

Come to think of it, her little speech hadn’t sounded much better.

She could leave it. Jon won’t push, she’s sure of that. Now is a bad time to start anything; God knows what they’re going to find if they dig further into the weird conspiracy that is their lives. And Jon is…obviously not having the best time right now. Maybe this would be too much.

Maybe. Or maybe she should stop talking herself out of going for the one good thing she has in her life right now and just – do it. Take the leap. It could end badly, obviously it could, but now much worse could it really go compared to being eaten alive by worms, or being murdered and having all memories and records of her face stolen by a body-snatching horror? _What’s the worst that could happen_ isn’t actually a hypothetical in her life anymore, and hasn’t been for years if she’s honest. She could die, horribly, and soon. So could Jon.

Sasha’s heart is in her throat; she has to swallow it down to speak. “So, correct me if I’m wrong here, but this is – it’s not just friendship, is it? For you, I mean.”

Jon stares, then looks away. A deep flush crawls over his cheeks. “I –“ he starts, then stops. The hand she’s not holding clenches into a fist. “If I made you uncomfortable -”

Shit, shit, she should have known he’d take it like that. “No! No, Jon, it’s not – I feel the same. That it’s not…just friendship. I mean.” Ah well, it’s not like she’s ever been smooth.

“You, ah, you do?” Jon still will not _look_ at her, so she can’t be sure, but that’s got to be hope. Christ, let that be hope, let her not have fucked this up irreparably.

“For about half a year now,” she admits, “but, um, more, recently. I guess something about surviving horrible things brings people closer together?”

“I’d hope it was more than that,” Jon murmurs.

“It is,” she replies firmly. “Definitely, it’s…you’re the only thing in my life I can actually rely on anymore.” Shit, she hadn’t meant to say that; _that_ was coming on too strong if ever anything was. But she can’t deny she’d meant it.

Finally, Jon smiles. “You know something? You’re the only person I can honestly say I trust. The only one.” Sasha feels his words sink deep into her chest, wrapping warm around her ribs. She’s so relieved it _aches_. “So yes,” he continues, “it’s not just friendship for me, either. Actually, it probably hasn’t been for a while.”

“Why the hell didn’t you say something?” she blurts, still flush with her own courage. “Save me having to do _this_.”

“I _am_ your boss. It wouldn’t have been…right.”

Sasha can’t help it; to her eternal shame, she laughs at him. Jon scowls like a soggy cat.

“Well, excuse my for trying my best not to, to _sexually harass_ my assistant!”

Forcing down her laughter, she lets go of his hand and turns to face him properly. “I know, I know, sorry. Really, sorry. I’m grateful you’re aware enough to not just, you know, dive right in. You’re smart enough to see how that could go wrong, and you care enough not to put me in that position.”

“Well, of course,” he says, shrugging. “That’s just the, the fair thing to do, isn’t it?”

“You’d be surprised how many guys don’t see the problem.”

“Oh, I’m sure I would be,” Jon says darkly, and she grins at him, miming vomiting behind her hand to make him chuckle.

Sasha leans back and finally, finally lets the relief wash over her. She’s said her bit, and so has Jon, and it seems like they’re on the same page – it’s _good_ , so good, the best she’s felt in a while. She wants to sit there looking at him forever; she wants to kiss him, right now. “For the record,” she tells him, copying Tim’s infamous eyebrow waggle, “if you did want to sexually harass me, I’d be alright with that.”

He splutters and flushes, shoulders drawing up, and at first she thinks it’s just her shit little joke. But then he sobers, and the tension doesn’t go away. “Yes, about that. There is something I should tell you.”

Sasha turns her whole body towards him; something in his posture telling her that this requires her full attention. “I’m listening.” She wants to reach out, hold his hand or something, but she knows Jon well enough now to know that touching people is hard for him a lot of the time, harder when he’s stressed or upset. So she keeps her hands to herself, and watches him collect his words.

Finally, Jon says “I’m asexual.” He doesn’t give her a moment to react before pressing on. “Meaning, essentially, that while I experience romantic attraction, I don’t experience sexual attraction. To anyone, ever; it’s nothing to do with you. This is just how I am, it’s not an illness or a hormonal issue. I, ah, understand if this is a deal-breaker for you, and if you say it isn’t because you’re holding out hope that you can change my mind – “

She has to stop him there; the careful way he’s not looking at her as he rattles through his canned speech _hurts_. “Jon!” she says, and when he brakes, still not looking at her, she goes on; “Jon, I know what asexuality is. It’s okay.”

He blinks at her, obviously startled. “You, ah, you do?”

“Yeah, one of my best friends is ace.” A best friend she hasn’t seen in almost a year, but that’s…not a problem for right now. “And I’m not going to immediately break up with you, or try and convert you or anything, I swear.”

“But you’re…sexual, for lack of a better word?”

“I am, yeah. But I don’t think it’s going to be an issue. I mean, I haven’t had sex since I broke up with my last girlfriend, about a year and a half ago now, and I’m not dying or anything.” She smiles at him, trying to keep it under control; her mouth just wants to stretch into a huge, sappy grin. “I like you, Jon. If having you means not having sex, I’ll make the trade. It’s worth it, to me.”

It’s a little offensive, how surprised he looks to hear that, but she reminds herself sternly that it’s probably not about her. It may not be about anybody – the man has a tendency to get stuck in his own head, project the way he sees the world onto everyone around him. God, she hopes it’s not about anybody; Sasha’s not a violent person, and she doesn’t really want to have that tested.

“So…” Jon says, voice so tentative it makes Sasha ache, “you’re still – still happy to –“

“Date you? Be your girlfriend?” This time, when the big sappy smile wants to unfold over her face, Sasha lets it.

Jon shudders theatrically. “Ugh, can we not call it that? It sounds so…juvenile.” If she didn’t know him better, she’d take his tone as an insult – but the way he’s looking at her, returning her smile with a soft, sweet expression of his own…

Fondness washes over her and pulls her down like a riptide. She holds it for a moment, then goes in for the kill. “What about ‘sweethearts’?”

She gets a pillow to the face almost immediately, but it’s worth it, God, it’s so worth it.

In the ensuing struggle, they both end up collapsed into each other on the sofa, flushed and grinning like teenagers. And damn, she feels like a teenager, like some huge and awful weight has been lifted right off her shoulders.

When Jon leans in and curves a hand round her jaw she smiles at him and pulls him down. He goes easily, sliding a leg between hers and propping himself up on his elbows – probably so he can keep eye contact. Sasha had wondered if the staring was just a pining thing, but she’s now fairly sure it’s just _Jon_.

Jon’s lips are warm and dry, unsurprisingly chapped. Over the next half an hour of shameless snogging, Sasha learns them in their entirety. She learns the man they belong to as well, his warmth and soft sighs, the cocky little quirk of his smile when something he does draws a gasp from her. The strong solidity of his hands on her face, her shoulders, her back.

It’s incredibly hot, in a way she didn’t expect; there’s going to be some quality time with her vibe next time she’s in her own bed. But there’s also no expectation to move it forward, to do anything but kiss until her lips feel swollen and tingly, until whatever wanting pit the last few months of watching and wondering about him has hollowed out in her is full, brimming over. There’s no niggling doubt if she’s doing enough for him – Jon stays soft against her thigh, and every time she shifts a little he follows her, presses closer. Like if he can’t watch her, at least he can be as near to her as he can get.

Eventually they’re going to have to stop kissing, Sasha knows that. And when they do, everything else is going to rush back in. Their job with its snatches of unspeakable horror, the monster that walks her dreams and likes to cut her, the Eye that follows her through the Archives and into her dreams – that she dreads so much, more because somehow, in some small shameful part of her, its gaze feels so _right._

But that’s eventually. And she’s just found out that Jon presses into her hands like a cat when she tugs on his hair, so eventually can kindly fucking wait.

**Author's Note:**

> tfw your love confession contains a reassurance that youll never stop searching for your loved ones corpse in the event of their mysterious disappearance. thats romantic right lads?
> 
> [this series has a playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6gMCGcMgKXhJ1MmMKdqifp?si=mkcrq0rsSGOOSm7XTi1wpA)


End file.
